


and she remembered

by ThatAloneOne



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: Character Study, Coming Out, Comparing Alex's reactions to Lord and Maggie, F/F, Pre-Relationship, coming out to self
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-17
Updated: 2016-11-17
Packaged: 2018-08-31 10:42:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,325
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8575228
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThatAloneOne/pseuds/ThatAloneOne
Summary: Flirting was easy, when it didn't matter.Also, which kind of missions count as dates.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LMoriarty](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMoriarty/gifts).



> Supergirl has eaten my soul. Welcome to the after. Dedicated to LMoriarty for doing so much schoolwork in one day and also being awesome in general. HI LANIE SUP ALTHOUGH YOU DON'T GET TO SEE THIS BEFORE THE REST OF THE WORLD I FELT LIKE MAKING A GESTURE SO I HOPE YOU CHECKED YOUR EMAIL.

Flirting was easy.  

Alex might not have the best luck at dating, but she knew how to try. By the looks of Maxwell Lord, it was working. His eyes were heavy on her, the champagne glass dangling from one hand. 

“You’re staring,” Alex said. It was an effort not to grimace, but she kept her smile soft. They owed her big for this. She didn’t do this sort of thing for work, and if it wasn’t for. If Lord was going to labour under the illusion she cared, he could, but Alex would be getting out of here as soon as she could. 

Maxwell smiled at her, wider, the same smarmy look she’d seen on the faces of a thousand men. Oh, he thought he was original. “Just trying to figure out where you’re hiding a gun under that dress.” 

“Behave, and you won’t have to find out,” Alex told him and clinked glasses. Honestly, she hoped the evening would go that way. It would be better than anything else he had to offer. 

 

* * *

 

Alex clung to his hand when Myriad went off because she wouldn’t let either of them die alone. He was out by the time she gathered the thought and strength to stumble to Kara’s pod and blast into space. She caught her sister before she hit Earth, and saved one life in return for Kara saving millions. 

Maxwell Lord never contacted the DEO again, like nothing had happened. He took his bigotry and anger and personality problems to elsewhere in America, where it would be appreciated. He took their research on Bizarro, too, but that was like him. It was everything Alex could have hoped for. 

Sometimes she felt like she should miss him, but she didn’t.  

 

* * *

 

She hadn’t been on a date in two years. That was longer than it had been for Kara, and Kara was an alien. Being a DEO agent wasn’t anything she wanted to bring to a relationship, but that wasn’t a real excuse. Alex never really thought about it anymore, but she wished she could have have the kind of love everyone else always talked about. She wished she matched up with someone the way that everyone else always raved about. 

Kara had people trailing after her like puppies — Winn, James, Adam, to name the ones Kara admitted to. Alex couldn’t imagine what that would be like.  

Alex was glad she wasn’t Kara. Having that many expectations riding on her wasn’t her idea of fun. She wouldn’t ever want to date someone because they kept after her. Alex wanted to _want_  someone, not the other way around.  

 

* * *

 

Maggie was waiting for her by the club, staring off into the distance of the warehouse’s backyard. She turned when she heard Alex, her face lighting up in delighted surprise. “You clean up nice.”

“I do?” Alex ducked her head, smiling bashfully. "Well, you do too. With the shoes and the hair and all the…” she gestured vaguely at all of Maggie, one of the most beautiful sights she had ever seen. 

Maggie just grinned, same as she ever did, and handed Alex a mask. Alex was glad for it, small as it was. It made her feel like something other than herself, and that was intoxicating.  

 

Maggie grabbed her hand, weaving their fingers together to lead Alex into Roulette’s fight club. Alex buzzed, with expectation for the night, with mission adrenaline and something more she couldn’t identity. Maggie held her hand longer than either of them could justify, but it still felt like a loss when they let go. 

They clinked glasses, watching Roulette stepping down and the fight beginning. For the first time in a long time, Alex remembered Lord — not for anything he’d done, but for something he hadn’t. That had been the last time she’d gotten drinks with anyone and… it couldn’t have felt more different.

Alex didn’t have time to think about it before Kara dropped into the ring and everything was forgotten.

 

* * *

 

Sometimes Alex felt invisible. Not physically. She knew everyone saw her, and Kara hugged her at the end of every mission, and Maggie clapped her on the shoulder every time she won at pool. Which was every time. Even though it was easy, it was good kind of ease, the kind that drew her back day after day. It wasn’t anything tugging her along just to get her tangled up in strings. 

The invisibility was something else. It felt like a gap in her life, something poorly written. Alex felt like the heroine of one of Kara’s romcoms, just waiting for someone to pop into her life and tell her what she had been missing. Because there _was_  something missing. 

Alex was a rock inching up a hill with a missing piece. She couldn't make herself perfect, no matter how hard she tried.  

Circles. She was going in circles. It made her dizzy, like the world was in standstill around her. Kara was an island next to her, whenever she needed, mouth full of potstickers and laughing. And Maggie, with the constant push, the showing up uninvited at crime scenes, at being the partner Alex didn’t know she needed. 

It was nice, to not be alone. 

 

* * *

 

It hadn’t even occurred to her that Maggie was gay until her girlfriend had kissed her and she’d turned Alex’s invitation down.  

No. She’d known. Maggie hadn’t made it a secret. There had been steel in her eyes when she’d mentioned it, just daring Alex to comment. Alex didn’t remember what she’d done, other than stumble a little before continuing on. She didn’t care. 

Maybe she cared now because Maggie’s girlfriend was competition. Just… for her time. Alex didn’t really have any friends, other than Kara. Maggie had been a change from the loneliness of her empty, hardly lived in apartment. And not that Maggie was different than she had been before, because she’d had a girlfriend before Alex had known about it, but… 

Alex didn’t like Maggie’s girlfriend. Couldn’t like her, however nice that girlfriend probably was. It was the same as disliking Winn in the beginning, when he kept spending all that time with Kara.  

But Maggie wasn’t like her sister. 

For the first time, Alex wished Maxwell Lord was still around. It would have been nice to be the one turning someone down for once. Alex wanted more control over her life, and she’d taken vindictive pleasure in placing brick walls in front of his clumsy advances. Didn’t he know the difference between flirting for work and meaning it? There was a line between them, clear cut as could be. Alex had always prided herself on knowing the difference between them.

(“And this is just business, right?”) 

The event with Maxwell Lord had been business, dress be damned. So was the club. 

Alex forgot everything over Kara, like she always did. 

 

* * *

 

She remembered all too soon.

Alex tried to invite Maggie out for drinks, tried to help her friend the best way she could. Her breakups in the past had never hit her hard, but she could see that this one was hurting Maggie, bad. 

Maggie had to stop and pause, looking at Alex like her features were something that could be rearranged. She looked pleased, almost; inviting. “I didn’t know you were into girls.”

Alex didn’t like lying. She could always taste it, like iron on her tongue, like she’d bitten her cheek, like she’d hit her nose. And she tasted it then, startled and flailing and stammering. “I’m not.” 

She remembered when she was walking away, her cheeks suddenly red, her heart pounding. Remembered-

Vicky. The way Alex's hand had fit in Maggie’s. Her desperation to be included, to be Maggie’s _friend_ , to spend time with her, to be around her. The eagerness, the following, the frantic attempts to put a smile on Maggie’s face. 

_I didn’t know you liked girls._

Alex hugged herself and thought, _Neither did I._

**Author's Note:**

> To write, I need to have something to say, and this was all I had to say today. Bless everyone else in this fandom for writing such good fics because my baby gay heart has exploded into rainbows. This is the rainbows. I hope you all have a wonderful day!
> 
> You can find me on tumblr at writerproblem193.tumblr.com!
> 
> also Lanie text me did u like it


End file.
